Systems and methods herein generally relate to sensors that detect weight and to systems that can detect weight along a length of a sensor.
It is often important to be able to automatically count and weigh items as they traverse a specific location. For example, in transportation systems, it is desirable to have the ability to count the number of wheels and axles on a vehicle for classification purposes. Current sensing schemes utilize mechanical “treadle” devices or inductive loops buried in the pavement along with signal processing to estimate these entities. Both of these methods have their drawbacks. The treadles are mechanical devices and, as such, are subject to wear, degradation by the environment, and other issues that make them a high maintenance solution. The loop counting method is indirect and only infers results based on averages. Slight differences in vehicle design and construction will result in the system supplying erroneous counts. Neither of these methods can count the number of wheels, only the number of axles.